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BA prepares to axe jobs in £300m cost-cutting campaign

BRITISH AIRWAYS is to unveil plans to cut costs by £300m a year. Staff expect thousands more job losses at the UK’s largest airline.

A new business plan will be presented to managers by Rod Eddington, the chief executive, at the end of the month. The scale of the cuts is less than previously reported, but insiders said significant job losses were inevitable.

BA’s last big efficiency plan, the £650m-a-year Future Size and Shape project, led to a target of 13,000 job losses. Sources said it would be wrong to assume similar cuts, but did not rule out large reductions in staff numbers.

“We are a different company now from when Future Size and Shape was introduced,” one source said. “This is a smaller savings target and we are giving managers some discretion as to how it is achieved.”

Eddington is expected to emphasise that despite evidence of a recovery,